Ready for more constructive conversations about our futures?

Yet, those actions just as those dialogues get twisted and stuck in details, either-ors, contradictions and confusion. The dialogue shouldn’t be about yes or no, now or never, us or them, dystopia or utopia. We need to do everything and they need to do everything, now and always. And regardless of what we do, there will always be pockets of utopia for some and dystopia for others.

In the early 2022 we opened up a call for creative proposals to address societal issues through physical “future prototypes” in order to engage different groups of people in more constructive dialogues about our futures. The starting point for the proposals is to imagine a day in one of possible future scenarios. These scenarios are driven by two main drivers or axis, increased or decreased climate disruption and our strategy to handle it – through big companies and governments leading the change or us people in our distributed communities relying on our power to change things. These are not a prediction but a speculation based on thorough foresight work looking at different megatrends, trends and weak signals of change.

Most probably might all these scenarios exist simultaneously. While there could be victories in preventing environmental crisis, there will very likely* be events that demand adaptation – in various ways. For example, the Gulf Stream could slow down due to quick warming of the oceans creating a colder climate in the Scandinavia. There could be 1,2 billion climate related migrants on the move. Local food and production chains might collapse or be disrupted and become unaffordable for many.

A guiding principle for our call for proposals is also; how can we create a good life for our grandkid’s kids, regardless of what happens. It is up to us to come up with and implement the strategies to handle the possible disruptions, through prevention and regeneration, as well as through adaptation and surviving. Forget either-or or now or never. It’s our job to create the future we want, for us and future generations, now and always.

References

Temperatures | Climate Action Tracker
Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse | Climate crisis | The Guardian
Predictions of mass-migration due to climate change are rife, but not necessarily accurate - Geographical Magazine

What climate change means for the future of coffee, cashews, and avocados (nationalgeographic.com)